Deadly superbugs are evolving to beat alcohol hand sanitisers

Bacteria triumph again. Superbugs have found a way to alter their genes to make it harder to kill them with alcohol-based hand sanitisers.

Alcohol-based hand sanitisers were widely introduced to hospitals in the early 2000s to stop the spread of drug-resistant superbugs like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) on people’s hands.

Although these bacteria had already evolved resistance to antibiotics, it was assumed they wouldn’t be able to do the same for alcohol. This is because alcohol kills them much faster …